Right on man. This bike is capable of so much. Any new riders out there shouldn't just take all the "top 3 mods" at face value. Not too long ago I came close to living in downtown Manhattan and Hoboken. This bike stock would be FINE for those locations. You could TEAR IT UP...serisously. It's all about what you need from the bike and if it can give it up for you.

I'm at 70mph indicated and 7k rpm right out the gate of my driveway. I'm about to complete the 17" motard wheel setup with the stock gearing as an experiment. We've all got a pretty good idea of what this machine does at stock and then slightly modified gearing at stock. Supermoto setup changes things a little bit and I'm anxious to open it up with stock gearing 17" wheels. Ultimately I'm going to tone it down a little and go with lower rear sprocket. Because highway speed is important to me. Some would say "why?'. I'm not on that road too too long, but long enough that I need to adapt to it.

The smaller wheels will change the stock 14/42 gearing a good amount(so I've read). It makes sense physics-wise, so I've got a shorter chain and a 39t rear sprocket in the mail-this is to match the new SF model OEM specs. I have to compromise between ultra low torque from gearing and then high end highway cruising power from the pipes and jet kit.

Just goes to show that this bike is very adaptable to many different riding requirements. Each end of the spectrum pushes the envelope of what this machine is capable of. I just sat on the new 450 Kawasaki and I noticed the headpipe just stuck out...like crazy. It was weird. I'm a new rider so maybe for higher end MX race bikes this is normal...but that was weird to me. But what do I know, there's no way in hell I'm racing one of these crazy things like that.

Kawasaki sees a market and this forum is confirmation that that market exists to support this type of bike. Keep it up everyone!!

 

They did that to improve low to mid range power and smooth out acceleration